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As Canada emerged as a mature nation, Queen Elizabeth showed she had learned a thing or two about stickhandling during her many tours of Canada.

The 1960s ushered in an extended period of new ideas, challenges and change - the Maple Leaf flag replaced the Union Jack in 1965, an exhilarating year-long Centennial celebration and Expo 67 buoyed the nation, the Quiet Revolution gripped Quebec, culminating with the 1982 Constitution Act, which created a fully independent Canada.

Where did the monarchy fit in? The Ontario Archives contain excerpts from a speech the Queen gave on June 26, 1972, at a provincial government state dinner at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

"The Crown is an idea more than a person and I would like the Crown in Canada to represent everything that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal. I will continue to do my best to make it so during my lifetime," Elizabeth said. "It is a particular satisfaction to me that the Crown can be a powerful link between all the nations of the Commonwealth.

"But it is as Queen of Canada that I am here. Queen of Canada and of all Canadians, not just the one or two ancestral strays. I would like the Crown to be seen as a symbol of national sovereignty belonging to all. It is not only a link between Commonwealth nations but between Canadian citizens of every national origin and ancestry."

Although her father, King George VI, had been the King of Canada, Elizabeth was the first monarch to be crowned Queen of Canada.

Robert Finch, Dominion chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada, said the Queen and her Canadian advisers were smart to recognize in the 1960s that she needed to emphasize the Canadian, and not the British, aspect of the Crown.

"As a new Canadian identity emerged, it became imperative for the Queen and the monarchy to continue to be 'Canadianized,'" Finch said. "It was a period where people were questioning traditional symbols and the status quo."

Elizabeth assumed the royal reins on the death of her father King George VI in 1952, just one year after a young princess, slightly trembling, emerged from an airplane with her husband, Phillip, for a lengthy tour of Canada.

She was reportedly taken aback by the size and enthusiasm of the crowds wherever they went.

"The '70s posed some serious challenges to the monarchy," Finch said. "Heck, it was in 1970 that the Monarchist League of Canada was founded in order to stem what was seen as growing anti-monarchist sentiment."

The country itself was facing challenges, such as growing Quebec nationalism and the emergence of the separatist movement in Quebec, he said.

"The Queen was able to carefully navigate these challenges by portraying herself as a monarch for all Canadians," Finch said. "She had a knack for saying the right words at the right time. I think Canadians really came to appreciate these assurances from their head of state."

One of the country's most iconic images is of Elizabeth, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau at her side, signing the Proclamation of the Constitution Act on April 17, 1982, replacing the British North America Act and giving Canada the power to change its own Constitution without approval from Britain, he said.

"What a powerful symbolic picture," Finch said.

Throughout the 1980s and beyond, the monarchy remained popular in much of Canada.

The royal weddings, Chuck and Di, and Andrew and Fergie, enthralled many Canadians, as the nuptials of Will and Kate and the romances of Harry do today.

Chuck and Di's subsequent divorce, and her death, would again severely challenge the monarchy.

There will always be those opposed to a monarchy in Canada but there remains a great deal of warmth for Queen Elizabeth, and that affection seems to be returned.

"The Queen definitely considers herself a Canadian monarch and has always shown a deep affection for this country," Finch said. "I think that's evident by the fact that she has been here more often than to any other Commonwealth realm outside the U.K. She's been present at most of the major milestones in the life of Canada."